Cerebus the Aardvark is done and dusted. In his place comes another extraordinary fictional creation: Sir Harry Flashman hero of the British Empire and all round scoundrel. Join me as I go through the Flashman Papers one damn chapter at a time. Books will also be reviewed and there will be the occasional rant.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Odd Transformations Part Two

I didn't think the end of the last chapter was really the end of this. Very glad to see that it wasn't. The first part of Odd Transformations was both fun and thought provoking.

It begins with Cerebus sleeping soundly, then shifts to a jail cell, once again the aardvark is back in his vest and medallions. The cell opens and Lord Julius appears at the door. He tells Cerebus that they're having some trouble in the kitchen so the Red Marches may not be well done, but he could take the ladder to Upper Felda. Cerebus is wearing his papal robes and now notices a ladder up against the wall.

Cerebus climbs out of a pillar with Julius telling him not to bother wiping his feet, Astoria's busy changing the baby. Cerebus' robes are tatters and he's holding a white sword with runes clearly visible just below the hilt. He hears a voice calling to him and the Wolveroach is standing on a stone telling him not to stand on the quick grass. Cerebus suddenly realises that he is sinking, he manages to grab onto a stone just in time, haul himself up on to it and look at the landscape.

The stones lead Cerebus across a grassland, through a canyon and across a river. Professor Claremont's Woman Thing appears in front of him. Cerebus' papal robes are back, he stabs the Woman Thing and leaves his sword in it, it topples off the pillar into the water. Suddenly the pillar that Cerebus is standing on begins to tip alarmingly. Cerebus jumps off and lands on the water. He rides a wave up to it's peak and then it crashes, taking it's passenger with it.

Back in the hotel Cerebus wakes before he falls, following the old myth about a fall in a dream leads to a fall and possibly death in the real world, Cerebus looks around and falls back to sleep and back to his dream. He is standing in the snow, dressed in winter clothing, out the front of a cathedral. Elrod is shouting about chickens and Lord Julius looks like one of Henrot the Wizard's magical creatures.

Cerebus, now wearing a shapeless white robe, trimmed around the collar with fur, leaves Elrod shouting nonsense and looks in on an argument between Astoria and Countess Michelle about who was a better niece to Lord Julius. Cerebus is again a child. Maybe it's just me, but as a child Cerebus looks incredibly cute, absolutely drawn to make a soft toy out of.

Continuing on, and now maybe dressed as he was when he was a child, with a cap covering his ears, Cerebus sees the adult Jaka and a child, who is either Jaka's child or Jaka as a child. Echoing through Cerebus' head is the argument he had with Jaka so many times about love and loss. Cerebus morphs back into an adult and his vest and medallions are back. The child Jaka's hand, holding a flower appears out of the wall and Cerebus' hears someone shouting: 'Did you hear me?'

Sitting by Cerebus' bed is Lord Storm'send from The Deciding Vote, way back when Cerebus ran for President. It's not a dream any longer.

If the first part of this chapter stretched Dave and Gerhard then this one must have damn near killed them. Dreams are hard enough to write I can only imagine how difficult they are to draw and keep the quality throughout the chapter. It was also a way for readers to connect to all the recurring characters they'd come to enjoy and possibly missed throughout a lot of Church & State.